My area seems to be having problems with their emergency alert system (EAS) and it's improperly activating which of course locks the TiVo on a certain channel (baseball game).

It let up briefly so I immediately put the box in stand by, but I'm curious if there's a way to get the box out of an EAS state once it's in it.

For example would disconnecting the coax cable return control? If so I could do that, put the box in Standby and then reconnect the coax.

Edit:

According to ComcastBonnie on twitter, the New Jersey Police actually kept triggering the EAS for an Amber Alert. For whatever reason the EAS is going through, but the video isn't. I find that odd that the NJ Police can directly access Comcast's cable feed.

According to ComcastBonnie on twitter, the New Jersey Police actually kept triggering the EAS for an Amber Alert. For whatever reason the EAS is going through, but the video isn't. I find that odd that the NJ Police can directly access Comcast's cable feed.

That's the whole point of EAS. An emergency is declared by a local, state, or national authority, and it is then broadcast to the region of concern, whereupon every conforming device will switch to the EAS feed. Actually, IIRC, it isn't done through the CATV system, per se, but through the local PBS station, which is of course a must-carry. Thus, it is essentially guaranteed that every conforming device in the area will switch, regardless of the delivery system. Satellite may be an exception, unless the satellite companies are required to carry the local PBS feeds on both polarizations.

Supposedly, if you put your Tivo in standby, it won't do the change-channel at all -- so your unattended recordings will go on as scheduled and not be messed up by the EAS... so you'll only be interrupted while actively using the Tivo.

Yes, but what can you do if you are actually already in an EAS and want to get out of it. I know the official answer is you can't, but there has to be a trick. You can reboot, but I'm hoping that doing something as simple as disconnecting the cable wire might work since it removes the EAS signal, though my guess is it will take a few minutes to time out.

Maybe I misunderstood EAS. That's the Emergency Broadcast Banner that scrolls close to the top of the screen right? Pressing the CLEAR button definately does cancel it, I've been doing it ever since the Series 3 came out.

Maybe I misunderstood EAS. That's the Emergency Broadcast Banner that scrolls close to the top of the screen right? Pressing the CLEAR button definately does cancel it, I've been doing it ever since the Series 3 came out.

I guess there are different types EAS, but as far as I'm aware none of them should be cancelable. It violates the cableCARD certification and possibly the law if a device allows you to cancel it. That's why I'm asking for ways to do an end run around it.

The one I'm talking is what TiVo calls an EAM and actually hijacks control of the TiVo and forces it to change to a specific channel and disables the interface until the alert ends. In other words the user is forced to watch the EAS. This works well if the EAS is an actual alert and ends in a reasonable amount of time. It doesn't work well if no alert is displayed or the alert never ends.

TiVo should show some indication that an alert is in progress. I thought my box had locked up since there was no alert displayed. It wasn't until I rebooted the box and it again changed channel and locked that I figured out it might be an alert message. I then turned on a cable box I had which displayed "EAS" as the channel number which confirmed it.

Instead of "bonking" at every remote press, TiVo should put up a message stating the channel can't be changed because an EAM is in progress.

I have seen this problem before and had two instances of it last night. We had an amber alert, once during prime time and then repeated about 1:30.

Both times the Tivo switched to the alert message and then failed to immediately switch back to normal control after the alert message ended. I was stuck on a black screen for approximately 5 minutes at the conclusion of the alert when the Tivo finally "timed out".

Has anyone determined if this is faulty signaling from Comcast, faulty signaling from a PBS station, or faulty detection of appropriate signals by my Tivo?

It is very annoying. I had not heard of the possible cure of pressing the "clear" button. Next time it happens, I will try that.

If you want to see more on EAS just search this forum on "EAS". Use advanced search and search entire posts and return posts, not threads. I am a TWC victim of this. AFAIK there is NO way to get out of EAS. You can prevent EAS from disrupting recordings by putting your Tivo in Standby. A small percentage of the time, the EAS corrupts my channel map and I have to power cycle my TA and reboot my Tivo. I haven't tried to get TWC or Tivo to do anything about this because I'm afraid they will make it worse after a lot of hassle.

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CableCard devices are REQUIRED to pass through Emergency Alert Messages (EAM). It is up to the carrier whether their system will exit from the EAM and dismiss the screen etc automatically or require viewer intervention. For us FIOS in SoCal exits on its own quite well.